joan garry

My friend Kerry Eleveld laughed when she saw my ticket.  It said “Preferred Standing.”  She even took a picture of it.  Remind me to ask her to email it to me.

My “seats” were amazing.  I was close.  Now to be fair, my camera has a good zoom enabling me to get the above picture.  But I was close.

With any televised concert, the cameras can block the view of those closest, so like the hundreds of thousands at the Lincoln Memorial,  I watched the JumboTron too.  Everything about the afternoon was pretty ‘jumbo’ so it seemed fitting somehow.  It was all larger than life.

Speaking of larger than life, I saw Don King on CNN on Saturday night.  He’s here too (we are not here together btw).  During my tenure at Showtime, he and I worked pretty closely together (subject of a much longer blog post at some later date).  The anchor could not get Don to shut up – he was desperate to go to break.  Don was desperate to see how many times he could say “Only in America.”

I found myself thinking about Don King while at the concert.  Not really him but his refrain “Only in America.”  You are thinking I am going to make the obvious connection but stay with me.

Queen Latifah comes out (no, not THAT kind) and begins to talk about freedom. She talks about singer Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt’s efforts to give Ms. Anderson the platform she deserved in a time when her voice was an inspiration but you could only hear it from the back of the bus.  The Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Anderson to sing in Constitution Hall and so Eleanor arranged for a concert at the Lincoln Memorial, Easter Sunday 1939.   She opened this concert with a stirring rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”  During Latifah’s remarks, we see a clip of her singing.

Josh Groban walks out on to the stage and picks up where Ms. Anderson left off.  This would have been moving enough but there was more.

The “curtain” opens behind Groban and there they are, without fanfare and like all other choruses, un-announced.  The Gay Men’s Chorus of DC.

I knew they were peforming but I didn’t know when or with whom.  I gasped.  I was by myself in my “preferred stand.”  I turned to a complete stranger and said (like a 6 year old kid who has just spotted the Easter Bunny at an egg hunt) “THAT’S THE GAY MEN’S CHORUS!!!”   Her eyes got big (in that very good way).

Then my eyes got big.  There on the JumboTron for all the world to see was my college boyfriend Tom Digiovanni.  I suppose I should have put the word boyfriend in quotes.  But it would somehow diminish a relationship I treasured (and still do).

I missed the next act in the concert.  I was just reeling.  I was at the Lincoln Memorial, camera zoom distance from the next President. The next President decided to send a big, big message at his big, big party.  The message, understated but there for all the world to see:  the struggle for gay and lesbian equality is a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE.

And so the next President invited my friend Tom to sing at his big party.

Only in America.